6418

Andrew William Mellon 1926

Standing half-length in profile to the left, head slightly turned in three-quarter profile, looking away from the viewer, wearing a dark grey suit and blue tie, holding some papers in his right hand

Oil on canvas, 130.8 x 87.3 cm (51 ½ x 34 ⅜ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1926. march

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 48: A.W. Mellon March 4 1926 / (Fifth year in Washington Treasury)

This was the first of five portraits of the sitter painted by de László [6417] [11202] [110521] [6423]. The artist also painted Mellon’s daughter Ailsa, in 1926 [6430] and his son Paul, in 1931 [6427]. There exists an untraced portrait  [110521] similar to the present picture which was originally in the possession of the family of the sitter.

De László first met Mellon at the home of Lord Lee of Fareham [11019] in London and later remarked: “From the moment that I met Andrew Mellon, I was impressed by the dignified simplicity of his bearing.”^[1]

The present portrait was the gift by subscription of 800 members of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, in recognition of Mellon’s services as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. The completed portrait was unveiled on 6 May 1926 at the 158th annual dinner of the New York State Chamber of Commerce and presented by James Speyer, head of Speyer & Co. The portrait subsequently hung in the Great Hall of the Chamber’s building with portraits of several former Secretaries of the Treasury, including Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin.^[2] “Of the picture...de Laszlo (who prides himself that his painting are ‘subjective’ rather than objective) had said: ‘This is a picture of a grand seigneur, who loves the fine and the real in art and meets the world with dignity. It is the picture of a man who is true to himself and who will stand unyielding on his own high principles. I had seen him often in his home. It is in a man’s home--his real milieu--that he is most himself. The outside world of business cares is far away. In his home I found Mr. Mellon a cultured gentleman, surrounded by the best in art, ancient and modern.”^[3]

When, on a subsequent visit to the United States in 1933-34, the artist visited the Chamber of Commerce, “crowded up to the seiling [sic] with portraits of former presidents,” he recorded in his diary, “only one fine portrait is there Rockefeller by Sargent & I think my Mellon.”^[4]

Andrew William Mellon was born on 24 March 1855 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of Judge Thomas Mellon (1813-1908) and Sarah Jane Negley. He was educated at Western University of Pennsylvania (later Pittsburgh University), from which he graduated in 1873. He quickly became one of the major figures in the industrial and financial development of the Pittsburgh area. He entered the lumber and coal business, and in 1874 he joined his father and brother Richard, in T. Mellon & Sons, the banking firm founded by his father. By 1882 he was the owner of the bank. He continued to build his business interests, diversifying into oil, steel, shipbuilding and construction.

In 1900, aged forty-five, he married Nora McMullen (1879-1973), daughter of Alexander P. McMullen, a major shareholder of the Guinness Brewing Co. She was twenty-five years his junior. Their daughter Ailsa was born in 1901 and their son Paul in 1907. They divorced in 1912.

In 1921 Mellon was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Treasury by President Warren G. Harding [5569]. To focus his attention on his new position, he resigned as President of the Mellon National Bank and as director or executive of various financial and industrial corporations. He continued to serve as Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Calvin Coolidge [4169] and Herbert Hoover [5787], pursuing policies of debt and tax reduction, aiming at a balanced budget. His tax reform scheme, known as the Mellon Plan, reduced taxes for business. For most of his tenure, he was able to implement his policies successfully, as the U.S. enjoyed a time of prosperity and peace. However, the “crash” of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression damaged his prestige and earned him increasing criticism. Despite the economic downturn, he continued his policy of balancing the budget by cutting spending and increasing taxes, thus worsening the effect of the Depression on average citizens. Mellon began spending a great deal of time overseas, renegotiating World War I debt repayments, and Hoover relied more and more on the Under-secretary, Ogden L. Mills. Mills succeeded Mellon when, in February 1932, Mellon was appointed American Ambassador to the Court of St. James, a post he would hold until March 1933, when he retired to private life. In 1935 he was prosecuted for tax evasion and endured a two-year trial to clear his name. He never learned of his exoneration, dying on 26 August 1937, several months before the jury’s verdict.

In his lifetime, he gave away more than 10 million dollars to charities. His most famous gift, consisting of money and pictures, allowed the establishment of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 1937. For thirty years, Mellon had been one of the greatest collectors of his generation, with a particular focus on Old Masters and British portraits.  

He was the founder of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and a Trustee of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh and of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He was also appointed a Trustee of his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, and was a Member of the Council National Industrial Conference Board Inc.

Andrew Mellon was also painted by Sir William Orpen, in 1924,^[5] Douglas Chandos in 1929,^[6] and by Sir Oswald Birley, in 1933.^[7]

PROVENANCE:

Presented to the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York by “Four hundred and seventy-three members in recognition of the ability, efficiency and farsighted policies shown by Mr. Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States;”

Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, Inc., Collection of Americana, New York;

Credit Suisse, New York;

Sold at Nadeau’s Auction Gallery, Connecticut, 1 January 2016, lot 310

EXHIBITED:

•M. Knoedler & Co., New York, An Exhibition of Portraits by P.A. de László, M.V.O., 4-16 January 1932, no. 10

LITERATURE:

•“Mellon Portrait Is Unveiled Here,” The New York Times, 7 May 1926, p. 9, ill.

•Emery, Steuart M., “Secretary Mellon Inspires an Artist: De László Paints Chief Officer of the Treasury as a ‘Merchant Prince,’” The New York Times, 9 May 1926, Section IV, p. 5

•“New Laszlo Portraits: Prominent Americans as the Painter Sees Them,” The Graphic, 3 July 1926, p. 15, ill. [erroneously labeled “Frank Mellon”]

•Anne Hard, ‘Mellon’s Influence on America’, New York Herald Tribune Magazine, 24 March 1929, Section XII, p. 1, ill.

•O’Conner, Harvey, Mellon’s Millions: The Biography of a Fortune: The Life and Times of Andrew W. Mellon, Blue Ribbon Books, New York, 1933

•“Philip De László, Noted Artist, Dies,” The New York Times, 22 November 1937 

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 258 & 360

•Supplement to the Catalogue of Portraits in the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, 1941, p. 6, fig. 237, p. 19

• Cannadine, David, Mellon: An American Life, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2006, p. 322

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 112, 196-197, ill. 110

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 139

•László, Philip de, 1933-1934 diary, private collection, 17 January 1934 entry, pp. 79-80

MD 2015